Songs From the Playground – Rebecca Applin – Landor Theatre

Songs From the Playground at the Landor Theatre, London gave composer Rebecca Applin an opportunity to showcase her work

Songs From the Playground – Rebecca Applin at the Landor Theatre, London.

Star rating: 3 stars ★ ★ ★

Described as a one act concert, Songs From the Playground, presented by the Fairground Theatre Company at Clapham North’s Landor Theatre, is the direct creative result of a one-year development programme which gives a writer the chance to explore their work in a safe environment, while having the experience of presenting new work to supportive theatre audiences.

I’m guessing that, on this evidence, the terms ‘safe environment’ and ‘supportive audiences’ means, in reality, mostly friends and professional colleagues being in attendance, but there’s nothing wrong with that of course and any initiatives to encourage new writing have to be heartily applauded.

Step forward then featured writer for the evening, Rebecca Applin, whose passion for the musical genre, and total enthusiasm for her work shone bright as she introduced each segment of the show to the intimate and eager house.

Featuring songs from works in various stages of development, the opening number, ‘The House of Tea’, with the full company, was from a musical, which Applin explained was in very early development and which would ideally tour, for example, tearooms around the UK. An acquired taste, like Earl Grey perhaps, if this wasn’t the strongest start, then ‘You Will Be Happy’, from her musical Moondial, sung with impressive charm and magnetic charisma by Victoria Serra (Love Story, Titanic, Mamma Mia!), put the evening immediately back on track.

Applin’s detailed preambles to each section were both informative and entertaining, even if you did feel a little like a pupil being addressed by a school mistress, but, thankfully, there was no chewing in class, so we could proceed to what was, for me, the strongest, three song section of the show, featuring a trio of excellent numbers from The Devil’s Disciple, which Applin, together with Kate Ferguson, won a commission from the George Bernard Shaw estate to adapt into a musical.

‘Hold Back the Night’, performed with evident relish and utter confidence by Keith Ramsay (Julius Caesar, Billy), was impressive enough, but when joined by Stewart Clarke (Assassins, Return of the Soldier), for ‘You Are a Gentleman’, the knock-about lyrical badinage between them was a true delight. Not least as it offered some light relief to Applin’s evident liking of somewhat macabre subject matter in her songs, a theme that would run through the evening.

With the female cast now taking centrestage for the next works profiled, Jabberwocky and Here Be Dragons, there was much to admire, even if a couple of songs weren’t, in truth, that memorable. While ‘The Flobble’, from Jabberwocky, was a silly and fun ditty, another number from the show, ‘Brillig’, sung by Cassidy Janson (Dessa Rose, Wicked) flowed seamlessly.

It was the number ‘I Breathe Again’, though, from Here Be Dragons (Janson, Natasha Barnes, Serra, ensemble) which sounded like the one sure-fire showstopper out of all the numbers and probably the stand out moment of the entire night.

‘White Elephant Stall’, the bittersweet song from the final work of the evening, Sex and the Village, was, though, also beautifully performed by Barnes. As a platform on which to build, and try out, her ‘works in progress’ – the cast, backed confidently by members of the MTA and musical director, Richard Bates – Applin can surely take away a lot from such an evening. It had its highs, and it had its not so highs, but that’s maybe what you expect from Songs From the Playground – swings and roundabouts.

Derek Smith